NASA unveils plans to turn neighboring planet into a "second Earth"
Better behind the fence
To restore the atmosphere on Mars and thereby make it livable - this was a proposal made by Jim Green, NASA's Planetary Science Division Director at the Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop, which NASA held late February-early March.
From Green's calculations, it follows that Mars itself will acquire a dense atmosphere if its loss is stopped. After all, once there was air on a neighboring planet. And there was water. But the gases were gradually carried away into space by the solar wind, the pressure dropped, the water froze. The remaining carbon dioxide also froze in places.
The solar wind continues to blow away the remnants of the atmosphere even now. Therefore, the scientist believes, Mars must be protected from it - from this wind. Than? Magnetic field.
Our planet - the Earth - has its own and very strong protective magnetic field, which it generates itself. Its magnetic lines of force emerge from the poles and extend far into space. Mars generates almost nothing, it has no pronounced magnetic poles. So Green proposes to create them artificially, but not on the planet itself, but nearby, by placing a giant magnetic dipole at the L1 point - the Lagrange point. At this point, located on a straight line connecting Mars and the Sun, the forces of attraction of the planet and the luminaries balance each other. And the objects located here can remain at rest forever.
Scientists propose to protect Mars with a magnetic tunnel
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The dipole will create a kind of protective tunnel in which Mars will end up. The tunnel will block it from the flow of charged particles.
The scientist assures: in a few years the temperature on the neighboring planet, protected from the solar wind, will begin to rise. The frozen carbon dioxide will begin to evaporate and, as a result, the atmospheric pressure will rise, which in less than 10 years will reach half of the earth's. Then the water ice will begin to melt - oceans will appear on Mars again. But on the whole, it will take hundreds of millions of years to turn it into a "second Earth".
For a long time, of course, although additional efforts will not be required - the transformation process will go, as they say, automatically. And you can start it in the near future - until 2050.
Mars' heated polar caps will begin to emit carbon dioxide
By the way, in the fact that there is almost no magnetic field on Mars, skeptics see the main obstacle for future colonists, and even for members of short-term expeditions - they say, they will go crazy from the blows to their brains with high-energy charged particles. Artificial protection, proposed by Green, may protect not only the atmosphere, but also the "Martians".
In the process of terraforming Mars will come to life
In about 700 million years, and maybe even earlier, Mars will look like Earth.
Apple trees can bloom earlier
The process of terraforming the Red Planet - that is, turning it habitable - can be accelerated. There are also such plans. They are hatched by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Scientists intend to add oxygen to the Martian atmosphere and remove excess carbon dioxide. To this end, they have already begun to produce genetically modified organisms - plants, bacteria and algae, which, in fact, will be engaged in ennobling the environment of Mars. The purpose of the modification is to create "chimeras", supplemented by foreign genes, which will make organisms more resistant, able to survive and reproduce in extreme conditions. In addition, the "chimeras" will be endowed with more powerful mechanisms of photosynthesis, which will accelerate the synthesis of oxygen and the absorption of carbon dioxide.
Vegetation can appear on Mars very quickly. It is even possible that it is already there somewhere.
Now on Mars, carbon dioxide is more than 95 percent, oxygen - 0.13 percent, nitrogen - about 3 percent. The surface pressure is 160 times less than the Earth's.
Vladimir LAGOVSKY